Koji Yama
Koji Yama is a member of the Healers Restoration Underground, a group of citizens who believe that Tohru Nakadai, the 42nd Rai, allowed Grandmother, the freewill caretaker of Japan, to leave Japan isolated and self-contained in orbit over the Earth following an alien invasion and then helped put the Humanists in power. Koji is a gifted engineer who builds destructive tools that reflect his zeal to help the Healer cause. =Project Homecoming= When Rentaro Nakadai, the 41st Rai, told Makiko Minashi, the Healers’ leader, of a module in Grandmother’s brain stem that she created to allow humans to override her command systems, she planned to force her to return so that, when she ruled once again, they would be victorious. The Colossus Under the veiled threat that they intended to blackout atmosphere and power across Japan, the Healers attacked the Skull Dome where Grandmother’s consciousness rested, which had become a shrine to Japan’s freewill caretaker, and stole a module from her brain stem. That day, at the Kiru Shrine, the Healers’ headquarters, Koji informed Makiko that the module would bring them all they fought for, when, then, Wasabe, a double-agent who had infiltrated the Humanists and became the second-in-command of Commander Kazuyo Nakadai, the Humanists’ enforcer, startled them. As Makiko warned Wasabe that he was a fool for being there since his value as a spy would be lost if he were seen, he told her that he could not trust a transmission, even on their scan-shielded wavelengths, said that he had been unable to disguise the module’s removal. While Koji worried that an investigation would reveal the module’s true purpose and that everything would be lost, Makiko assured him that Project: Homecoming was important, and told him that they had to protect it, even if meant taking drastic measures. After Tohru and Kazuyo destroyed a colossus that the Healers built using pieces from drones that Grandmother created to escape the pain of a technotumor that an alien carcino–pod created in her brain stem, Makiko assured Koji that its sacrifice convinced them that the circuit was destroyed. While she held the module, Makiko proclaimed that with it they would win what they wanted all along. The Proud Gatekeeper After Tohru raided a Neopium den where the citizenship indulged in Neopium, a narcotic that brought them contentment and, with prolonged exposure, swayed them to the Humanists cause that they then died defending, Makiko worried that his search for its source would bring him across their work just as Koji Yama made progress adapting the neural circuit. Reluctant to surrender Project: Homecoming, Makiko sent her agents to a hidden factory that her scouts had uncovered to confirm that it was the secret Neopium laboratory to then leak the data through the newsgrids. The Devil After Hiro, a Healer soldier, and a Healer force breached the Morita Desalinization works, a seawater storage facility, he reported their successful break in to Makiko Minashi, who was outside a restricted access maintenance station in the Osaka plexus with a Healer troop. After Koji Yama used a dampening charge that sent a focused electromagnetic spike through the maintenance’s system that shut it down, the Healers breached the station, and, while Makiko subdued the soldiers, Koji activated a module that brought the station online. When Koji expressed his concern over how they acquired the system codes, Makiko told him that, sometimes, one dealt with the devil. As Koji went over a console that shaped the Nerveweb’s pulses and monitored Tohru’s movements, Makiko told him that with the access codes they could create a surprise for him while she personally handled Kazuyo. When Tohru entered the Nerveweb to reach the seawater storage facility to help the survivors of an explosion, Koji initiated blocking codes that solidified the web around him to trap him in an artificial capsule and then activated the Nerveweb Dragon, a construct that drew its energy from the Nerveweb, to kill him. Though Tohru’s arrows tore the dragon’s flesh, it renewed instantly while the serpents on his head stroke without fear, heedless of the wounds that they made in the walls of the capsule. Abruptly, Tohru bowed before the beast and fooled it into tearing a hole on the capsule that he used to escape. When the Healers reconvened in the Kiru Shrine, Makiko assured them that Tohru’s worth to Tanaka and his link to the people had weakened him, and told them that he would no longer be able to delay them. Certain that they would launch Project: Homecoming within two days, Makiko proclaimed that nothing would matter once Grandmother returned. Genocide While Makiko Minashi oversaw the construction in hangar T-47of a rocket that the Healers cut corners and rushed schedules to keep ahead of Tohru to launch Project: Homecoming, Koji informed her that he completed the final connection and they were ready to go online. When the Humanists breached the access hangar, Koji and the rest of the Healers kept them away from the rocket while they primed the ignition circuits to launch it. When Rai arrived and disarmed a contingent of Healer warriors, Makiko Minashi, in her desperation, ordered Koji to initiate the launch sequence and the discharge from the rocket’s engines instantly killed many of their number. When Makiko tried to burn Kazuyo in the engine fire, Kazuyo shot Tohru in the back to get his attention and when he released a burst of energy into the Battlesuit to help Kazuyo escape, the influx caused Makiko to fire a blast that damaged the take-off ramp and placed the rocket in a trajectory against the outer hull. When Koji said that in their rush they had not installed an emergency shutdown circuit, Tohru damned him and then attempted to stop the rocket himself, but the exhaust blast kept him away and, despite his attempt to tear it apart with an energy spear, the rocket blasted off and tore through the hull. Almost instantaneously, the vacuum sucked thousands of Japanese citizens into the void of space. The Departed While Koji Yama was hard at work on a holographic simulation of President Shinji Tanaka in a private storage repository in the Sapporo sub–level where Councilor Isao Seko hid him because he thought that his electronics genius could be useful, Isao unexpectedly entered the room and startled him. When Isao told him that if the public were to learn that he was who designed the rocket that slaughtered families and find that he had taken refuge there without his knowledge they would kill him, Koji rushed to finish his work. When Koji wondered whether even if they succeeded Tohru would return seeking revenge on the both of them, Isao assured him that in a very short while, Tohru would be incapable of enacting revenge on anyone. =Unity= When Erica Pierce, the God–like entity called Mothergod, tried to achieve Unity, a convergence of all the timelines, the Geomancers of two eras gathered the heroes of Earth to stop her in one final decisive battle for all eternity in the Lost Land, a place outside time and reality. The Fall of Japan When Tohru Nakadai, Magnus, and Gilad Anni-Padda, the Eternal Warrior, entered the Lost Land to stop Unity, Erica Pierce watched them from her Rainbow Tower and feared that Tohru’s power posed the greater hazard to her plans. In a bid to turn Tohru away, Erica contacted him as a hologram projected through a Bionisaur and offered him a chance to save his world. After she conjured an image of Japan as it appeared in orbit over the Earth, Erica told Tohru that she was projecting an energy matrix wavelength into his timeline that increased gravitational fields, and then she pushed Japan from orbit to prove her intention. As Japan dropped Earthward, the suspension support arms deployed automatically throughout the host body to keep the citizens safe. After Erica gave Tohru a rod that would instantly transport him to Japan and negate the mag–grav field once he arrived, she melted the entrance he used to reach the Lost Land so that, once he left, he could never return. Stuck between Erica’s threat to fill the sky with the blood of millions, and Gilad and Magnus’ rationalization that she wanted him gone because she feared him and their plea that he weigh the millions of lives against the billions that would die if they lost, Tohru shattered the rod, and, in retaliation, Erica destroyed Japan. As Japan experienced an increased gravity surge that completely decayed its orbit and made an impact with Earth imminent, the technicians in the headland’s unified operations control center initiated dragon mode in an effort to break their fall, even though its missing limb prevented them from safely making planet-fall. In what felt like an eternity, Japan fell from the sky and crashed into the Indian Ocean, killing millions of people upon impact. The Walking Dead Following the fall of Japan, Koji Yama joined Makiko Minashi in a hidden bunker where the rebellion hid its Ninjatrons and, together, they arrived in the palace plaza just in time to rescue Kazuyo Nakadai from a group of tattered palace guards. Certain that now that they were not alone they would triumph, Makiko told Kazuyo that they should go see to it that Isao Seko experienced a great deal of pain. Six minutes later, Koji and the others breached Isao’s office just after he fled in a governmental flier, and though the Ninjatrons tried to shut him down, he avoided their blasts and escaped. When Kazuyo discovered he armor was gone, Koji used an alien pulse-scan the underground possessed and helped her find the control ring amid the ruins. When Kazuyo found her hand with the control ring still on it, she summoned the armor to her, and when it responded to her command, it tore a hole through Isao’s vessel that forced him to crash. As the commando armor flew into the office and wrapped itself around Kazuyo, she said that she missed it, then, when the armor created a surrogate hand for her, she proclaimed that they were truly whole. Concerned that Kazuyo was as determined that her Humanists should rule as she was that her techno-rebellion should take over, Makiko asked her if, when the final sword was drawn, she would kill Isao, who was their strongest leader and their best hope of holding power once the chaos passed, but Kazuyo said nothing and left. After Kazuyo killed Isao, Koji, Makiko, and the Ninjatrons arrived in a shuttle and Makiko told Kazuyo that she was impressed and a little surprised she killed him because he was the best chance for Humanist rule. As Makiko pulled out a weapon that she intended to shoot Kazuyo with, Rentaro Nakadai, Kazuyo’s father in law, rushed towards them and said that their fight was stupid given their situation. When Kazuyo told Rentaro to stay away and that she had nothing to live for, Rentaro signaled Rokland Tate, the Geomancer, who walked up to her with her son, Takashi Nakadai. Elated to see Takashi, Kazuyo believed that Isao was wrong when he said that he killed him and Tohru, but, to her dismay, Rokkie told her that Tohru gave his life in a struggle to save existence, and because of him the battle was won and he would he honored forever. Surrounded by the Ninjatrons and with Koji at her side, Makiko told Kazuyo to leave Japan with her family and memories and keep both alive. With Takashi in her arms, Kazuyo said that there had been enough fighting, and told Makiko that, just like Japan would endure, so would they. As Kazuyo walked into the sunset with Takashi and Rentaro, she said that it was time to let the healing begin. Category: Rai Category: Characters